Bridges between the divide: The female body in Y tu Mam tambin and Machuca

Abstract:

Y tu Mamá también/And Your Mother Too (Cuarón, 2001) and Machuca
(Wood, 2004), two successful films that broke box office records in their respective
countries, Mexico and Chile, are both coming-of-age stories that narrate
unlikely male friendships that cross traditional Latin American social boundaries.
Additionally, the female characters in both films function as catalysts of the
unlikely male friendships and serve as bridges to the utopian spaces represented
by the idyllic beach at the end of the long political tenure of the Partido Revolucionario
Institucional (PRI) in Y tu Mamá, and the integrated catholic school
during the brief but socially promising government of Salvador Allende in
Machuca. At first glance, it appears as though the realism of each film rests on
the injurious use of women as signs demarcating the boundaries of a patriarchal
social space inhabited by men, and narrated by men to men. We argue, however,
that the narratives also provide critiques of traditional sexualities and thus can be
understood as relatively progressive texts that confirm the emergence of new masculinities in Mexico and Chile.